Way too many things to comment on individually, so here's how I feel (in general).
The ethics of redistribution look contradictory because the statement "I earned it, it's mine" holds an axiomatic status. Of course, this statement breaks down as well when you start looking closely at it.
There is no metaphysical connection between the work you do and the money you earn, or the products you buy. This emerged historically around the time (or shortly after) notions of "property" shifted from landed property to moveable property, and eventually to notions of the self. You own yourself, and this interior bond reflects an inalienable right to self-property and, consequently, to rights themselves. It's a convenient little feedback loop (i.e. I have rights because it's my right).
This is a construction built on pathos rather than logic. Obviously, if someone steals a paper I wrote, submits it to a journal and it gets published under their name, I would be livid; but that's not because I believe in an immaterial connection between my efforts and the finished product. My reaction is entirely emotional, and others can empathize with my reaction because they probably can comprehend how I feel - perhaps they've even suffered similar circumstances. And we can say that my experience is incredibly unfortunate, but we can't make a logical argument saying I have a metaphysical right to ownership over my labor (we could say that I have a historical, or systemic, right; but that's another argument that raises other issues).
The reaction is emotional, and there's no logical reason to limit it to experiences of work. We can experience an emotional reaction to seeing a homeless person along the road, and we can feel that we should collectively redistribute monies in order to help such people. There may be no logical ground on which to base such an argument, but neither is there one to say that I have a right to my own property.
All that said, I don't think welfare programs or distribution efforts work outside the context of the global marketplace. Capitalism is a materially necessary historical context within which to pursue distribution efforts, which can be implemented to varying degrees. Socialism and communism, despite their opposition to capitalist structures, are actually steeped in early capitalistic theory (after all, Marx took the labor theory of value from classical economists) - they are constituted by the capitalist context. The only way we move past it is through a serious paradigm shift that neither socialism nor communism can, in my opinion, bring about.
When people decry welfare programs or distribution efforts as socialist, it makes me laugh. There's a reason why socialist countries fail, and it doesn't have to do with socialism being an inherently poor system. It has to do with socialism being a poor system for dealing with the global financial market.
. Democratic Socialism has proven highly effective.
